The Battle of the Mind

The Battle of the Mind – Part One

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

The Christian is locked in an intense war. However, many of us are so interested in fighting the external war with the Devil, that we forget that much of our battle is not with external forces, but within our own mind and thoughts. In these verses Paul provides the key to victory in this area where most Christians suffer constant defeat.

He reminds us that our weapons and strategy are not fleshly or carnal. This is the first key to victory. Most Christians employ fleshly, psychological and human tactics to deal with spiritual problems. Many books that provide “six easy steps to victory” will employ human wisdom and add a few Bible verses to sanctify a system they have borrowed or stolen from the world. Strip those Bible verses out of the book or sermon and you are left with a motivational book or talk that the world will pay money to read or hear. When something is that acceptable to the world we need to question whether it is indeed authentic Christianity. I have no doubt that many of those formulas work to some extent and for a while. They are just like the many “cures” for weight problems that are touted every day – they provide instant solutions, for a while, but in the end leave you worse-off than before.

Our weapons are mighty in God. They are powerless in and of themselves, but in God they are mighty, powerful and able to bring those thoughts under control and to break down the mightiest strongholds. These weapons include the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), prayer (Ephesians 6:18) and the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8).

One of the reasons why we need such strong weapons is because these thought-patterns are so deeply entrenched in our minds that they literally occupy strongholds in our lives. Paul did not use this word by chance, this is the same word which Philo the philosopher (probably known to Paul) had used to describe the bastion of arrogant human reason. Philo likened this desire of man to fortify his arguments against God to the tower of Babel. What does that all mean? It simply means that the reasons we have for acting as we do, and being as we are become so powerfully entrenched in our minds that they become like military forts which are impregnable. Have you ever tried to reason with someone who is clearly (by all standards – not just your own) wrong and realized that you are up against a stone wall? Well, that is exactly what it is. Our arguments against God’s will, His Word and the wisdom of the church become so fortified in our minds that nothing short of a miracle will be able to penetrate with the truth.

It is often over years of self-justification and rationalizing that these strongholds are built, stone by stone, argument by argument until it is a fortress behind which we hide from God and our responsibilities. But if we are to be the people He wants us to be, these strongholds must be torn down and the thoughts hiding behind them brought into obedience to the Lord Christ. Paul says these arguments that elevate themselves against God must be cast or pulled down. Often when we come across this in a person, they will have an almost irrational denial of reality and we say such a person is irrational or emotional, but the text refers to them as arguments. (The King James incorrectly refers to imaginations). The Greek word is logismos from the same root as “logic”. We all have rational, logical reasons why we are disobedient to the Lord. Allow me to share some hard-earned advice. Do not even try to argue with, or convince, such a person. They are not interested and will simply retreat behind the castle of their reasons and begin to fire at you with all sorts of criticism. So what are we to do? Our weapons are not human – remember? We can only allow the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to do the work. Our part is simply to pray. That is all. Unless the Lord changes the person’s mind and begin through His Word and Spirit to tear those fortifications down, your attempts will simply cause the person to entrench themselves even more and go over to the attack. It is hard to learn not to argue with such a person, but to simply walk away and pray and trust the Lord to deal with them. Trust me, try to “help” them and you will only buy yourself much unnecessary heartache and pain. One of the hardest things in Christian work is to hand such a person over to the Lord, when we feel we have a duty to actually do something.

More importantly is the fact that each of us have such strongholds in our own lives. Strongholds of fear, doubt, unbelief, greed, lust, anger, addictions and the list goes on and on. There is only one place we can actively participate in this work of tearing down the strongholds and that is in our own lives. Sometimes we want to be free of the hold these things have in our lives, but often, we enjoy them and are not willing to let them go. But the text reminds us that it is not just ourselves that are being wronged by allowing these thoughts to control us, but it is sin against The Most High. Paul speaks about “every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” (v5). Is that not what they did at the Tower of Babel? They built this tower in defiance of the Lord. That is what we often do when we harbor these things in our minds – we allow and encourage these things to lift themselves up in rebellion against God!

Do you feel defeated even before you have begun? Maybe it is because you have been trying to overcome these entrenchments using human methods or in your own strength? It will not work and I hope you will have realized that by now. We need the dynamite power of the Holy Spirit to explode these fortifications and He can and will do it – with our permission and cooperation. How? Read more next week in the mean time recognize these things in your life and begin to pray.

Part Two

The solution to these strongholds is they have to be broken, pulled and torn down. They cannot be converted or remodeled. That is one of the most serious and frequent mistakes we make. We feel we can somehow convert or change these strongholds for the good. Thus we see people ministering from a platform of pride, or channeling their anger into their preaching or finding an outlet for their lust for power and money in the church. There are countless ways in which the strongholds of the flesh are given a make-over and presented as something useful to the Kingdom. That was precisely Paul’s struggle with the antagonists in the Corinthian church.

These strongholds cannot be converted; they are in their very essence opposed to God and His principles. They can only be dealt with in one way – they have to be torn down. That has to happen in the same way they were erected – stone-by-stone. Strongholds do not appear in our lives overnight, they are built stone by stone as we reinforce bad thoughts and allow them space in our minds. In the same way they have to be dismantled, one by one. I know that we all wish there was some kind of miracle cure, which could destroy these strongholds in an instance. Sometimes the Lord does do that in individual cases. It is however not the norm and the majority of believers have to struggle to dismantle these fortresses one thought at a time.

How does this work? Well, we have thousands of experiences and bits of information which we have gleaned from all sorts of sources which we cement together with the mortar of our own reasoning's which form a castle of inferiority, pride, fear, lust etc. These things have to be pulled down one piece at a time while not allowing new mis-information to be added to what is already there. That means controlling what and who we listen to, watch, read and spend time with. This will stop the negative flow of information, but that in itself is not sufficient, as we all have enough raw material in our memories to last a lifetime. Secondly we need to replace this wrong information with God’s perspective on the issues and thirdly we need to manage what our minds do with the good and the bad material at it’s disposal.

Replacing the bad with the good is easier said than done. We live in a world which bombards us with a constant stream of information which is contrary to God’s Word. Almost everything the world has to say through it’s media is contrary, no matter how good and wholesome it may seem. I am not saying we have to live in a monastery, but we do need to begin to understand that God’s ways are dramatically different to the world’s ways. That is exactly where our first problem lies. Most of us do not understand how negative the world’s influence is. This is aggravated by a host of “Christian” preachers who insist that the world and it’s system is basically good. I have been shocked by the slew of books on how to see the “gospel” in “The Sopranos”, “Harry Potter” or any other evil program designed to make us feel good about murder, rape, robbery, adultery, witchcraft and any of a thousand other vises. I am tired of “Christian” books that quote Hollywood characters as examples of godly characteristics. Since when is evil good? Is this not the accusation against the prophets of the Old Testament? (Isaiah 5)

Do we not understand that “our Lord Jesus Christ … gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:3). “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: … to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27) “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4) Beloved, we will not win the battle of the mind until we fully understand and are convinced that everything the world has to say is in opposition to God’s Word. The world will only agree with the Word in order to trick you into dropping your guard. “Has God indeed said…”

Many Christians attend church for one hour a week, listen to the message and go home. The rest of the week their thinking, values and views are shaped by the world and then they come crying when they cannot get victory in their personal lives. I listen to their cry for victory and simply have to walk away from the meeting knowing that everything I have said will be contradicted by the world before the day is out. You cannot break those strongholds down through one sermon a week while you rebuild and reinforced the few rocks that were pulled down in the service, by the time you have finished reading the Sunday paper.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying you should not read the Sunday paper or watch television or expose yourself to any form of worldly media. But a child should not be allowed to eat anything in the supermarket until he is able to read the labels on the cans and can figure out what is food and what is poison. Even then, he needs to be well educated because much of what is sold for food in the supermarket is very bad for you, but only someone with an understanding of diet and physiology can make the right choices. In the same way it seems very few Christians are able to discern between good and bad, especially if it has a Christian or wholesome looking label. Frequently people, who should know better, recommend various “Christian” books to me. On closer inspection such books are often anti-Christian in essence and again I have to groan within myself for the naivety of people and their leaders. Oh that Christians could just see and understand what they are doing to themselves by filling their hearts and minds with stuff which is either downright poison or which is slowly killing them!

Until you stop the enemy coming in through the gates of your senses you will never stand a chance against him. Close those gates today and challenge every thought and idea before giving them right of entry by that age-old question: “friend or foe” - To be continued.

Part Three

So far we have spoken of the fact that these strongholds are habits, thought patterns and complexes that have been built in our minds over many years. They are built one thought at a time and become very powerful as they dominate the landscape of our thinking and feelings. The world and its systems continue to build forts in our lives through a constant stream of thoughts, ideas and arguments that infiltrate our minds through the gates of our senses, primarily our eyes and ears. We will never win the battle against these strongholds until we stop the flow of misinformation to our minds. Today I want to deal with a few thoughts on how these strongholds can be dismantled.

Paul speaks of “casting down arguments”. So the stones that make up the walls of these strongholds are arguments and they need to be pulled down. Now if we were to pull down the stones that make up a literal fortification we would do so using ropes and chains and some kind of machine that could pull at the stones and so bring them down. Our battle, however, is a spiritual one and therefore we cannot use physical things to bring these arguments down. There is only thing that can bring an argument down and that is a stronger argument. So many people try to deal with these strongholds in an emotional way, but feelings are no match for arguments. We need stronger, better and right arguments or reasoning to break the strongholds down. We simply call those the truth! The arguments that Satan and the world build with are lies, half-truths and deceptions. Our weapon against these is the truth and there is only one truth – God’s truth; as contained in His Word.

Yes, the Bible contains the antidote to the lies of the world, the flesh and the Devil. Remember when the Devil tempted Jesus with arguments based on half-truths from the Bible? Jesus’ response was not to “bind” the Devil or to say “I think” or “I feel”. No, He simply quoted the Scriptures correctly and in their correct context. That is the only way we will win this part of the battle of the mind – by knowing the Scriptures and being able to wield the Sword of the Spirit. Without spending time in the Bible and under the teaching of a good church, you will never win the battle of the mind. You can only use a sword when you have been trained how to wield it. And you will never win the battle of wits against the Devil unless you know the Word and know it well. Now, I know, there are some who are reading this who feel they will never know the Word enough. That is not true. If you are diligent in searching the scriptures and you fill your mind with the Word instead of what the Devil has to say, the Holy Spirit will teach you and bring to your remembrance exactly what you need in order to win. But the Spirit can only bring to your remembrance what you have learnt. (John 14:26)

A verse often quoted, even by unbelievers, is John 8:32: “…you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This is often used as some kind of mantra without understanding exactly what Jesus was saying. Truth about some every-day issue does not have a magical ability to set people free as politicians and social engineers would like to have us think. Firstly Jesus said: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (vv 31 & 32). In other words, if we abide in His word, that will prove that we are His followers then we shall know the Truth which will set us free. This promise does not belong or work for those who are not followers and learners of Jesus. Also the Truth is not going to be found in the manifesto of a political party or a history book or in our own emotions or thoughts. It is only in the Word. Neither is it found in a superficial reading of the Word, but as we abide in the Word, we will discover the Truth which will make us free. This means spending time in the Word, meditating on it and being obedient to it. Listening to a 30 minute sermon once a week is not going to set you free, neither will a 3-minute reading of a daily devotional. Abiding means to remain constantly in and submerged in the Word! As we abide, remain, dwell, live and move in the Word, we will begin to really know the Truth and that will set us free. Notice also that He did not say if you heard the truth, but as we know the truth – we are set free. Jesus was speaking about freedom from the slavery of sin, which is exactly what these strongholds do – they keep us captive.

Then in verse 36 of John 8, Jesus continues to say “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”. First He said the Truth will set us free, but now He says the Son will set us free. Is that a contradiction? No, remember that Jesus said “I am the Truth” (John 14:6). So abiding in the Word will teach us to know Jesus and Jesus will set us free as we obediently follow Him. Jesus said “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)

So, in order to begin breaking down the strongholds, we need to immerse ourselves in the Word and be obedient to it. As the Word begins to contradict the arguments of the world, the flesh and the Devil and we believe and act on the Word, the strongholds will come tumbling down, argument by argument and reason by reason. But remember, if we allow the world to rebuild and reinforce the strongholds faster than the Word can break them down – we will never win and that is unfortunately the truth for many Christians! Limit the access of the world into your mind and soak in the Word of God and you will begin to find victory in areas you never thought possible. I have often spent time with folk in deep depression and watched how quoting the scriptures and the promises of God, sometimes for hours on end, have brought people out of the depths of despair. It does work! - To be continued.

Part Four

The wrong thoughts, reasons and arguments that shape us, and the way we act, need to be broken down and replaced with Godly and Biblical values. Paul refers to this process as “the renewing of mind” and in Romans 12 refers to the pressure of the world to conform us into its image, whereas we should, in fact, be “transformed through the renewing of the mind” (Romans 12:2). This process does not only liberate us, but it changes us from the inside out.

We have a mind which has been tainted and perverted through the influence of our former lives and the continuing propaganda campaign of the world. Now that mind needs to be renewed. Partly, this happens when we are born again, but much of the work has to happen after the initial new birth experience. This work is also never complete and is an ongoing process as we abide in the Word and follow the Master in simple and complete obedience. We know that all the cells in our bodies are continually renewed as we expel the old cells and by healthy nourishment build the new. The problem with the body, however, is that in spite of it being renewed all the time, it also grows old and is slowly dying. So the mind is also renewed as the old thoughts and ideas are expelled and a constant stream of biblical ideas are fed into it. Unlike the body, the mind need not become more limited over time, but can become more spiritual and closer to the Lord as we get older.

As what we feed our bodies will determine its health, so what we feed the mind will determine our spiritual health. In Philippians 4:8 Paul says: “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.” So, as we fill our minds with the Word and with heavenly things, our minds will be changed and renewed, more and more into the Mind of Christ.

There is yet another step in this process and in our text Paul refers to it as “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”. In a military battle not a single member of the enemy can be allowed into our camp, let alone hundreds and thousands of enemy soldiers infiltrating our side of the line. Yet in the spiritual battle we will tolerate thousands of enemy agents in the shape of thoughts and ideas working inside our minds and hearts! NO! Every thought needs to be brought into captivity. Just one wrong thought can sabotage the entire work of God in our lives, just as a few Islamic insurgents allowed on home ground killed thousands on 9/11. Have you ever wondered why God was so angry that Saul did not wipe out every vestige of the Amalekites? It is because of this exact principle. You may remember that it was the very thing that Saul had spared that came to finish him off and that killed him when he was at the lowest point of his life! Do not spare or show mercy to any of the agents of the Devil in your mind.

Every thought needs to be brought into captivity. This means it needs to be captured and brought under control. When an enemy soldier is found on the wrong side of the line, he is immediately apprehended and restrained and eventually either imprisoned or deported. The whole object is to render him incapable of inflicting any kind of hurt or damage on the friendly forces. In the same way these thoughts need to be apprehended and restrained and either expelled from our minds or brought under control. It is just here where most of us are defeated. Our minds are filled with thoughts and ideas that run about, unrestrained, gathering momentum and support and undermining us from within. Why do we allow that to continue? I really don’t know, but we do. Every thought needs to be controlled. Don’t let your mind run away with you down the road of lust, bitterness, pride, anger, worry and unbelief. Bring those thoughts into submission to the obedience of Christ.

Peter puts it this way: “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober…” (1 Peter 1:13). He is using an analogy of a soldier who would place a belt around his waist so that his loose clothing will not get in the way and trip him up when he is in battle. That is what all these uncontrolled thoughts do. They trip us and ensnare us as they flap about inside our heads. They must be brought under control and tied down. Paul speaking about the same things says “having girded your waist with truth” (Ephesians 6:14). Is that not what we said last week? – The truth will set you free! So, just as the truth makes us free from the domination of bad thought patterns, so the truth will stop our thoughts running away with us. There is nothing like a dose of reality and truth to dispel the ghosts that lurk about in our deepest thoughts. Those who have a problem with stress and worries during the night will know how the light of day (truth) brings all those doubts and fears down to nothing.

So, let’s allow the weapons of our warfare to bring every thought under control and let’s be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And let’s heed Peter’s call:

“ Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles” (1Peter 4:1-3)

Anton Bosch

anton@ifcb.net

3310 W Magnolia Blvd

Burbank, CA, 91505

Tel 818 846 5520